To:INESSA ARMAND

Written:Written March 19, 1917Published:First published in 1964 inCollected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 49.

      Sent from Zurich to Clarens.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1977],

      Moscow,Volume 43,

      pages616c-618a.Translated:Martin Parker and Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

DearFriend,

Iam writing you in reply to the letters I received from you today and
in connection with the talk we had on the telephone.

Imust say I am keenly disappointed. In my opinion everybody these days
should have a sing]e thought—to rush off. Yet peopleare“waiting” for something!!...

Iam sure that I will be arrested or simply detained in England if I go
under my own name, as it was England that not only confiscated a number of
my letters to America, but asked (her police) Papasha in 1915 whether he
corresponded with me and whether he was in touch with the German socialists
through me.

It’sa fact! Therefore, I cannot personally make any move unless very
“special” measures have been taken.

Whatabout the others? I was certain that you would rush off to
England, as only there could you find out how to get through and how great
the risk is (they say via Holland, London—Holland—Scandinavia, the risk
is slight) and so on.

YesterdayI wrote you a postcard on my way
				back,[1]thinking that you were doubtlessly planning and had decided to go to Berne
to see the consul. But you write that you are undecided and want to think
it over.

Mynerves, naturally, are overstrung. No wonder! To have to sit here on
tenterhooks....

Probablyyou have special reasons, your health maybe is bad, and so on.

Ishall try to persuade Valya to go (she came running down to see us on
Saturday after having kept away for a year!). But the revolution doesn’t
interest her much.

Oh,yes, I nearly forgot. What you could and should do immediately in
Clarens is to start looking out for pass ports
(α) among Russians who would agree to give theirs (without them
knowing it’s for me) to enable another per son to leave the country;
(β) among Swiss men or women who would give theirs to a Russian.

AnnaYevg. and Abram should be madeimmediatelyto go to the
embassy to get a pass (if they are refused, to complainby wireto
Milyukov and Kerensky) and leave, or, if they don’t intend to leave, to let
us know on the basis offacts(and not words) what the procedure
is for getting a pass.

Allthe best,Yours,Lenin

InClarens (and the vicinity) there are many wealthy and not-so-wealthy
Russian social-patriots, etc. (Troyanovsky, Rubakin, etc.), who should ask
the Germans to allow the passage of a railway coach to Copenhagen for
various revolutionaries.

Icannot do it. I am a “defeatist”.

ButTroyanovsky and Rubakin+Co.can.

Oh,if I could only teach sense to these noodles and riffraff!...

Youwill say, perhaps, that the Germanswon’tgive a coach. I
bet you theywill!

Ofcourse, if they get to know that this idea comesfrom meor
fromyou, the thing will be ruined....

Arethere any fools in Geneva for this purpose?...